Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! Part 2

            So my previous post was just a brief overview of my first few days in Dar.  The day following dinner at Prof Mitch’s university flat was Wednesday.  The main thing that happened that day was a concert in the evening to kick off the symposium.  It was a performance by Prof Gerhad Kubik and an ensemble performing blues/swing music from Malawi.  Kubik is an ethnomusicologist from Vienna that is currently 79 years old.  He is a gifted clarinetist, as well as a celebrity in the field of ethnomusicology.  He has collected so many recordings in his career that he basically has his own archive.  This ensemble in particular also featured one-string bass, where the player just angles a 2x4 piece of wood attached to a box to get different pitches.  Pretty cool!  The concert was in downtown Dar.  It started two hours late because we were stuck in traffic.

Gerhard Kubik delivering his keynote address at the symposium.

80 year-old Kubik shredding clarinet on left, one-string bass on the far right.

            Thursday and Friday were the days of the symposium at U of Dar.  Some of the presentations of the first day were not as impressive as those at the ICTM conference in East London, but I am told that this symposium is meant to be a little more varied in quality/experience.  Even so, some presentations were quite impressive.  My friends Zack and Jocelyn presented again and did great.  Two other students from University of Washington also shared great presentations- David Aarons and Joe Kinzer.  The director of the ethnomusicology program at University of Washington, Prof Dr. Patricia Campbell, also presented.  It made me excited for that school for sure!

Zack and Jocelyn just killing it!

            One really cool presentation was by a professor of ethnomusicology at University of Weimar, Germany and a man from the German Public Radio in Berlin.  They are working on several archive projects, as well as one huge international conglomerate archive online.  They are also developing an application like Shazam or SoundHound where you could identify literally any music played-back or performed around you and the origin of that music.  Seriously cool stuff! 

Another noteworthy presentation was that of Dr. Matt Morin.  He is an alum of Florida State University that did his PhD dissertation on NGOs in Kenya- namely the recording studio we’ll be working with when I go there!  As he was presenting, I connected the name with the face and realized that this was the man whose PhD I had been reading to prepare for our repatriation work.  His paper was literally on my iPhone in iBooks.  I went up to him afterwards to tell him how thankful I am for his work and to encourage him that someone is actually reading it.  It was an awesome moment for both of us, I think!

The conference was in sort of an outdoor lecture space at the university.  As is typical for conferences outside of the U.S., it seems, there were copious amounts of coffee and tea breaks.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided, and the food was amazing.  I was even able to find some free wifi on the campus!  Life was good.

Friday night there was a big choir concert to celebrate the close of the symposium.   It was incredible moment, being blown away by this kwaya, as they spell it in East Africa.  They sounded amazing.  But it also was just quite humbling to acknowledge that I was getting the privilege of listening to an African choir actually in Africa.  One piece was in Zulu (from South Africa) and another in Swahili.  I just reflected on the reality that people all over the world acknowledge African choirs for their beautiful voices and charisma.  It even isn’t that uncommon for them to appear on popular CDs or on television behind a famous artist.  But I was finding them in their home, in the context in which they actually live.  Pretty unreal!

Dr Kedmon Mapana giving some closing remarks at the end
of the choir concert. 

Saturday we had some free time.  We went to a local market called Mwenge where they sell all kinds of little carvings and garbs for souvenirs.  It is obviously a tourist trap, and all the vendors were basically swarming around us to try to get us into their shop.  The most interesting part to me was that one shopkeeper offered to take me into the area behind all the shops where all the items were crafted.  The sight was very much consistent with the sweat shops we imagine in third world countries.  It was all sheet metal shacks and people sitting in the dirt working away at some craft item.  Very eye-opening indeed.  Especially because this market essentially exists due to tourist ignorance and indulgence.

My friend Chris Mena examines the wares of one shop.

This was a rare glimpse into the back of the market where
the carvings and crafts are made.

Caught the shop keepers off guard - all on their phones!

Obama's popularity in Africa is unwavered.  His face is
printed here on a swatch of cloth.

A funny sign in front of a store.  "Have you had dreams about

natural fruits?  Well here is where you can fulfill your dreams."

For dinner we went to a restaurant at a beach resort called Seacliff.  Next to the hotel I found a phone shop where I bought two Tanzanian SIM cards- one for my iPhone and one for my laptop to use internet.  That’s how I’m able to post this currently.  5 GB of data was 28,000 Tanzanian shilling, which comes out to about $16 USD.  The exchange rate here is 1680 TZS to $1 USD.  Pretty crazy!

Matt Morin and Prof Mitch over dinner.

Even as I type this, I cringe a little bit with the irony of going straight from the poverty-stricken market to the beach resort for dinner.  This polarization keeps popping up in my travels in Africa.  It particularly seems to pertain to the privileged few that can live in wealth and then go witness the poor.  It almost feels like a sick form of tourism.  It's interesting traveling with ethnomusicologists too, because they are very aware of the potential negative impacts of transcultural interaction.  Yet they are human too, and sometimes seem to participate in the perpetuation of this cycle.  It is hard to judge, because I know I do too!  This is my sermon for this post.  

Sunday we checked out of our room at Uplands Centre and rode the bus from Dar es Salaam to the village of Chamwino.  So much more to come!